Indian share markets ended the day on a positive note, though off their high points. At the closing bell, BSE Sensex ended up by 155 points, while, NSE Nifty ended up by 49 points.

Barring metal stocks, capital goods stocks and healthcare stocks, all sectoral indices ended in green with realty stocks and telecom stocks witnessing maximum buying interest.

Globally, Asian stock markets finished broadly higher today with shares in Japan leading the region. The Nikkei 225 is up 2.4% while Hong Kong's Hang Seng is up 0.8% and China's Shanghai Composite is up 0.7%. European markets are lower today with shares in France off the most. The CAC 40 is down 0.2% while London's FTSE 100 is off 0.2% and Germany's DAX is lower by 0.1%.

Pharma stocks ended the day on a mixed note with Ajanta Pharma & Aarti Drugs leading the pack of gainers. As per an article in a leading financial daily, Lupin has received approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) for Lurasidone Hydrochloride Tablets, 20 mg, 40 mg, 60 mg, 80 mg & 120 mg.

It has received approval to market a generic version of Sunovion Pharmaceuticals, Inc's Latuda Tablets.

Lupin's Lurasidone Hydrochloride Tablets is indicated for the treatment of adult patients with schizophrenia, monotherapy treatment of adult patients with major depressive episode associated with bipolar I disorder.

Reportedly, Latuda tablets had annual sales of approximately US$3217.3 million in the US (IQVIA MAT September 2018).

To know more about the company, you can access to Lupin's Q2FY19 result analysis and Lupin's 2017-18 Annual Report Analysis on our website.

Lupin share price ended the day down by 1.1%.

Moving on to the news from finance sector. As per an article in a leading financial daily, IL&FS Transportation Networks, a group company of the troubled IL&FS group, defaulted on dividend payment of Rs 71.2 million due on redemption of cumulative non-convertible redeemable preference shares.

Reportedly, the dividend of Rs 71.2 million was due for the period between 1 April 2017 to 23 December 2018 and was not paid due to insufficient funds.

Note that, IL&FS and its subsidiaries have defaulted on many debt instruments in the past few months due to insufficient funds.

The group's total debt stood at over Rs 940 billion as of October 2018.

Speaking of the IL&FS crisis, Tanushree Banerjee, co-head of Research at Equitymaster, rightly pointed out in The 5 Minute WrapUp, that rating agencies were late to ring the alarm bells this time as well.

Here's what Tanushree wrote:

• "Now, no doubt, rating agency ICRA kept upholding IL&FS' AAA rating until August 2018. But the rating documents over the years, that lay down financial numbers, clearly showed a risky trend.
  
  Even as IL&FS Financial Services' debt to equity ratio shot up over the past six years, the ratio of NPA to networth kept ballooning. And as I have written earlier for PSU banks, the NPA to networth ratio is something I stay extremely wary of.
  
  For IL&FS Financial Services, the NPA to networth ratio rang alarm bells by 2016 itself."

Rising NPAs and Debt - Early Indicators of IL&FS' Liquidity Crisis

Indian Share Market Update: Top Gainers and Losers